


A Second Chance

by RyanWithSuperPowers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Harry Potter, Harry Potter was Raised by Other(s), Male-Female Friendship, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person Limited, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Raising Harry Potter, Statute of secrecy is probably broken, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, i tend to jump between past and present tense because I can’t make up my mind, like at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-03 14:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanWithSuperPowers/pseuds/RyanWithSuperPowers
Summary: Harry Potter was dead. He died by Voldemort’s hand, and he stayed dead. And the world... didn’t quite end, but for some people it did. For his friends, people who should have become his family over time, the world was over.For Ginny, the world was over.She’d tried to move on, all of then had. But three years after she had to go to the funeral of the boy she had almost loved, she decides that she can’t live in hiding from the Death Eaters any longer.So when she comes across a powerful time turner, powerful enough to travel twenty years into the past, she spins the hourglass and finds herself taking a tumble into the rose bushes of number three Privit Drive.Changing the past could cause the end of the world. But her world already ended, so if she’s going down, she’s dragging everyone else down with her.IMPORTANT: chapter 1 is actually chapter 2, because this is a continuation of LullabyKnell’s fic, “the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance”





	1. This is really chapter 2 (read description!)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14016324) by [LullabyKnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell). 



> Absolutely all of the credit and love to LullabyKnell for the original idea! This work is a continuation of their fic, “the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance”, which you should absolutely go check out first! Mine will make zero sense if you haven’t read that first, this is purely a continuation of a fic that they said they would probably never finish.

It was dark out, sometime after the very middle of the night, but it could very well have been high noon and Ginny would not be able to tell. The curtains were pulled, the lights were out, the baby was sleeping (thankfully, finally) and that blasted pen was  _ still not working_. 

There were no other pens in the room, Ginny had checked, rather thoroughly, and the total amount she was able to scavenge consisted of: one (1) broken pen, three (3) trampled business cards, one (1) used tissue, two (2) unused tissues, one (1) used thing that she did not want to think about and had promptly levitated into the trash bin, one (1) trash bin, two (2) half used notepads, and varying coins adding up to £4.33 in muggle money. 

Because she was a champion at Muggle studies back in school, and because she absolutely had time to think about things such as these in times such as these with the amount of things she should probably be doing instead, she knew that amounted to $5.47 in American muggle money, which was absolutely relevant information to her current situation.

When staring at the ceiling did no good for her problem of misbehaving pens, she reached for her wand and transfigured it into a pencil. There, problem solved. Everything is great now, fine and dandy, yep. Ginevra, stop talking out loud to yourself before you wake the baby. 

The baby. Who is Harry Potter.

Who used to be her boyfriend.

Before he died.

Yes, him. That baby.

Don’t wake him.

After only a few more hours of existencial crisis, Ginny is back on her feet and despite the utter and complete silence of the room, the baby (Harry) is awake again, and crying again. Ginny doesn’t know anything about children, let alone how to make the baby (Harry!) stop crying, so she just rushes over and takes him in her arms, rocking him and going “shush, shhh, no, please stop doing that I really can’t stand it, shhhhhh, please, shh” and surprisingly, the baby (that’s Harry Potter!) quiets down and stares at her face silently.

Relieved, Ginny looks away from the baby (it doesn’t look much like him, other than the scar and the eyes, but then again all babies are really just formless blobs of flesh learning how to be human shaped, slowly, over time) and notices that, wow, it’s morning. The sun is up. So much for- nope, the pen is a pencil now, yay! Everything’s fantastic!

The lady from the night before (who she had confunded! After kidnapping Harry Potter!) had said breakfast was in the morning, which it generally tended to be, so Ginny took Harry downstairs. 

After wandering about for a few clueless moments, she found muggles. And food, there was food as well. She got herself a plate and began to pile food onto it, stopping as she realized something.

What do babies eat? Can the baby (HARRY POTTER) even eat at all yet, or just drink milk? Baby food existed for a reason, didn’t it? Or was he too big for that, he was one-and-a-day after all? How was she even supposed to find out anything about what to feed the baby (that is HARRY freaking POTTER) without making it glaringly obvious that she was NOT supposed to be caring for a baby (HARRY. POTTER.)

Absolutely not panicking and causing a scene in front of many muggles who were already giving her odd looks for her impeccable fashion choice, Ginny added several healthy looking things to her food pile in a rush and carried both that and the child in her arms back to the room that she was not going to call her room, because she was not staying for any longer than necessary. 

She hated sitting him into the basket again, but where else was she supposed to put him? Ginny took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then looked down at the plate in her hands. Slowly, she picked up a blueberry and held it in front of the baby (Harry) just to see what he would do. Surprisingly, he reached out for it, and Ginny let him take it. He squished it too hard with his fingers in what was most likely an accident, but he didn’t seem to care as he stuck the blueberry (which was rather green inside) into his mouth.

Yes. Yes of course he can eat, he has teeth, genius. He’s one. He speaks (a bit), yes he can eat.

Just to be safe, Ginny only handed him small, soft fruits, as well as feeing him small amounts of scrambled eggs using a fork that used to be a pencil that used to be a pen. Which was now going to be a purse, because that’s what happens to naughty pens who don’t behave, she tells the baby, who giggles while understanding none of what she’s saying.

After eating, she takes one of the notepads and the loose change into her new small brown purse, decides that the basket would really be better off as a baby buggy, though it takes her a few tries and she spends a while staring out the window not-quite-spying for a parent pushing their child around in one so that she doesn’t accidentally go out in public with something that has yet to be invented. 

Once assured that, yes, baby buggies do exist in 1981, Ginny placed him inside the no-longer-a-basket and began to walk in the direction she hoped would be Godrics Hollow, if she had memorized muggle London well enough.

After a much too long walk, Ginny arrived outside what really should have been Harry’s childhood home. The door was unlocked, for reasons she preferred not to think about, Ginny opened the door and prepared herself to enter the house of two freshly-dead young parents for reasons that she also did not want to think about, which may include ransacking the house for spare change that wasn’t muggle as well as fetching some of Harry’s things.

“You can’t go in there!” A familiar voice called out from behind her, causing Ginny to quickly stop. Surely enough, as she turned to look over her shoulder, Remus Lupin came running up the front steps. 

When he saw the baby, however, he froze, and when the baby saw him, he (Harry! Potter!) reached out his little arms and made babbling sounds resembling what she assumed to be “moony” but sounded more like “moo-we”. Then his eyes went to her face, still mostly concealed by her hood, and white as a sheet breathed out “ _ Lily? _ ”

“Oh! No, sorry, my bad, again with the hood. No, not Lily,” she apologized as she lowered her hood to reveal her face. “I’m Ginny- er, well.”

Ginny Weasley would be born in ten days. That... is possibly a problem. She doesn’t exist. Are there any good possible outcomes for claiming to be Molly Weasley’s unborn daughter from the future?

“Jenny?”

Or, well, that works too.

“Yes, Jenny. I’m Jenny.”

“Do you have a last name, Jenny?”

Crap.

As she stuttered for an answer, come on Ginny- **Jenny** , think! Last name, last name..

“It’s fine today, yes, but what will the weather be-“ a passing muggle inquired to her friend, walking past ignorantly.

“Weather, be, uh,”

“Weatherby? Jenny Weatherby?”

“Yes.” Nailed it!

“I’ve never heard of you.”

“Well, I’ve heard of you, Remus Lupin.” The older man (who was supposed to be many more years her senior than two) tenses up quite visibly, as he interpreted that (very misleading) sentence in the wrong way. 

“Oh! Merlin’s beard, I’m very bad at this.” She began, but then the baby started to fuss. “No, no no, up we go, hey, look at me, huh? Look over here, shush now,” Ginny, or, well, Jenny rather, tried, but to no avail.

“Pa,” he cried out, “pa!” And her heart sunk.

“No, no pa’s not here Harry.” And then she was struck with a brilliant idea. “But look!” She pointed his head over towards Remus, still standing about a foot away from her, “it’s moony! Say hi to moony, Harry,” and then, to Remus this time, “could you hold him for a moment? He only calmed down earlier because he thought I was Lily, but I doubt I can help much when he’s crying out for James.”

Remus did, reluctantly, take baby Harry into his arms, and the fussing stopped.

“Great, good job, you’re the Harry-Holder now, congratulations Lupin,” Ginny told him as she entered a house that felt much too lived in for its inhabitants to be dead.

“The... Harry-Holder, yes, I suppose that’s- Ms Weatherby!” Remus snapped out of his dazed state, looking up to Ginny rummaging through drawers in the living area as he stood the front doorway holding Harry. “What in Merlin’s name are you doing?”

“I’ve come to collect Harry’s things,” Ginny explained, closing the drawer and quickly pocketing the few coins she had discovered before Remus could get the wrong idea. Er, or the right idea, maybe, though she wasn’t here to rob the Potters! She was here to... to, um. Borrow. Some money. From the baby she was taking care of, to use in order to take care of the baby. So really Harry was just taking what was rightfully his, and using Ginny as a medium for that.

“Harry’s things? Where’s he going that he’ll need all his things?” Remus finally entered the house and shut the door, instead of inviting the whole street into their conversation. 

Now headed up the stairs, Ginny replied “Well he can’t very well stay here, can he? I’m his...” his what, exactly? “His caretaker. Now that his parents are gone.” 

“Now hold on just a minute!” Remus took his time climbing the stairs, as not to upset the reasonably grumpy baby in his arms. “Dumbledore told me that Harry would be going to stay with Lily’s sister and her family, and you are not Petunia. That’s the only reason Sirius isn’t his guardian now, because he won’t be protected if he’s not with his blood relatives!”

“Yes, I know all that,” Ginny replied, a bit exasperated. “You do realize, all pureblood families are intertwined at some point, there’s no way around it. The Potters and-“ she hesitated, can’t say the Weasleys. “...my family, they’re interwoven several times a ways back, I am his blood relative, to a degree. This has all been thought out, no need to worry, Lupin.”

Remus laid Harry down in his crib, and Harry very nearly fell over with how quickly he passed out, finally safe in a place he knew well. 

“Where are you going then?”

“To find Sirius Black, immediately and as soon as possible get him protected.”

“What? No, I meant... with Harry... why should Sirius be protected?” Ginny spun around to face him, still grabbing things that Harry would need and some that he most likely would not.

“Well, he was secret keeper, and the secret keeper tattled to snake face, so I need to find him fast, or he’s off to Azkaban for twelve years.”

Remus stumbles back to lean against the wall by the door, white as a sheet suddenly.

“He... no, Sirius... he wouldn’t, Sirius would never... Padfoot, no no no...” he looked like a man drowning, lost in his own mind.

“No! Sorry, no, he wasn’t really secret keeper. But everyone thinks it was him, and they won’t even give him a trial, because they’re so sure. Which, absolute bs by the way. It was Pettigrew, he was secret keeper for real.”

This news was not much of a comfort to Remus, unsurprisingly. He was crying, silently, and breathing heavily while leaning all his weight against the wall and sliding down it, because that is what one does when one is still coping with the very recent murder of two good friends, and then is caught with the whiplash of thinking one friend a traitor who got them killed and then another friend a traitor who got them killed, then faced with the facts that the innocent friend will be punished for the guilty friends injustices. 

That is what one does, one cries.

And so Remus cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have written this at 2 AM 10 seconds after reading the original, but hopefully my shoddy proofreading the next morning caught any errors I may have made.


	2. Shortest chapter ever, I’m sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to what Jenny Weatherby thinks about what the normal reaction to this situation is, Remus Lupin has the superior knowledge that Adults Don’t Cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written at the same time as the previous chapter, and it’s so short that i would have kept them both as part of one big chapter, but this is technically in Lupin’s POV, so I decided to make it its own tiny chapter

When children cry, they cry loudly. They want attention, they want people to look, for someone to make it better. Babies cries are evolved to sound annoying and obnoxious.

When adults cry, they cry quietly, if not silently. They put a lot of effort into not making a spectacle of themselves and pretend that they are fine, because no one sees adults cry, only children cry. Adults don’t cry, that’s just a myth. Adults are strong, adults are smart, and adults are mature. Adults don’t cry.

According to that theory, there are no adults on the face of the earth. Every “adult” is just a large child who has to pretend.

Which is a surprisingly accurate description.

Remus Lupin does not cry. Remus Lupin has been through hell and back and endured it all with his head held high. Remus Lupin is a Mature Adult and he Does Not Cry.

His eyes are just watering, is all. Allergies. Allergies are very adult.

His eyes spend a long time being watery.

Eventually he has to go have watery eyes downstairs, sitting in a chair while the odd young woman he met earlier that day makes him a cup of tea, so as not to disturb baby Harry and set him off as well.

There had been enough crying that day, enough pain in this house to last the rest of his life, but that wouldn’t stop more from coming.

Wouldn’t stop Remus’ eyes from watering. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I don’t remember writing this but I proofread it in the morning and it seems fine, and it’s relevant to the story somehow without being critical to read, so here it is


	3. Cold tea is disgusting and Americans don’t get an opinion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny comes up with a less-than-brilliant-idea.
> 
> That’s it, that’s all that happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha funny story actually, this was meant to be much longer.
> 
> Sorry.

The tea had gone cold and Remus Lupins face was dry, and Harry James Potter slept soundly in the crib from which he had watched his mother die.

Ginny Weasley held in her arms yet another load of things that were “absolutely crucial to caring for Harry”, and placed them in a pile downstairs on the living room carpet. 

“I’ll be honest, no idea how I’m going to get all this stuff to... my place.” Ginny admitted, not-so-secretly hoping Remus would offer his assistance.

“You have a purse don’t you?” Remus asked, “just cast undetectable extension on it, carry everything right in your handbag.”

“You. You are smart.” 

And the bag that was once a fork that was once a pencil that was originally a broken pen from a muggle bed and breakfast was then filled with supplies for caring for baby Harry, and slung around Ginny’s shoulder.

“Ms Weatherby, if you are looking for Sirius, he’s looking for... Peter. I have no doubt about it.”

“I know, and I know they will eventually meet, I just don’t know when, or where really.” She should have thought about saving people before she traveled back in time, she would have had access to dates and times and exact addresses to rescue them from, but her mind had been preoccupied with saving one person in particular.

Speaking of which, she had done it!  Ginny Weasley has kidnapped Harry Potter Ginny Weasley had rescued Harry Potter from his horrible muggle relatives, and now she... now she had to figure out what to do with him. 

She really should have planned this better.

Ginny stared off into space as her mind flew at a million miles an hour, another measurement she knew very well thanks to muggle studies. She would raise him, that much she had planned out, if not in detail. Remus Lupin would likely be someone to keep around, seeing how Harry was so attached to him, even at a young age. 

But where would she live? She couldn’t just keep confunding muggles into letting her stay, and she couldn’t very well find a house or apartment with no money and no job. The Potters house would be an option for a night or so, but after that... perhaps Remus would lend his sofa to her? If he had a sofa, Ginny was well aware that he had been no better off than her family in terms of finances back when he was... would be... older. 

And now she was thinking of her family, eleven year old Bill and nine year old Charlie, five year old Percy, and the three year old twins... oh Merlin, Fred was still alive. Fred was three years old. And Ron was one, and Ginny would be born in ten days.

She wondered, were the twins trouble makers yet? Was Percy just as stuck up at five? Was Bill as brave yet as he would grow up to be? She was sure, though, that Charlie was already obsessed with dragons. She’s been told for ages how much he loved his birthday present when he turned eight, a book about magical creatures written by Newt Scamander. He never stopped talking about that book, and how incredible and fascinating the different breeds of dragons were. Ginny has always been a bit more interested in how he transported the animals, however, from where he rescued them to where he released them.

She jolted forwards suddenly, startling Remus as she broke the stillness of the room. That’s it! The case, she knew this already! He kept hundreds of beasts in his suitcase with an undetectable extension charm, and Ginny had just cast the same spell on her purse! She could, fairly quickly, transform her brown handbag into somewhere she could safely live. 

“Um, Lupin, do you mind doing me a favor? I would like to find Sirius as soon as possible, but I have some... errands, to run. Would you mind watching over Harry?” Remus hesitated for a moment, glancing over towards the stairs and then to the front door before responding.

“Yes! Yes, of course. And you can call me Remus, really. If...” he took a deep, shuddered breath. “If you’re to be Harry’s guardian, then I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

This took Ginny a bit by surprise, though it really shouldn’t have. Remus had been quite attached to Harry in her time, and he hadn’t gotten to see him in years. Of course Remus would want to stick around to care for Harry, and of course she was going to encourage that as much as possible. It was very comforting, to a nineteen year old girl, to learn that she would not be alone in the world to raise this child.

“Thank you, Remus. And you can call me G... Jenny, if you want to.” Nope, can’t call yourself by your name, you are Jenny Weatherby, your name is Jenny and you are from the house of Weatherby.

Remus did end up going back upstairs to watch Harry, leaving the untouched tea cold on the counter. And as Ginny left Godrics Hollow, she realized that she had no idea what sort of things were needed to build a house inside of a purse.

Why did she think this would be easy? It wasn’t as if she could pay for the materials, or pay someone to build the house, so she now had to somehow obtain all of the materials for building a house, and then build the house, inside of her handbag.

Oh, how she hated adulting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had this for a few weeks, procrastinating writing the NEXT chapter, and apparently forgot to post this one. Whoops. My bad. As an apology, the next person to comment on this fic gets to name the first side character!
> 
> ...no that’s not just a way to get out of naming a character.  
> ..not completely at least, it’s also an apology.


End file.
